IIT Jodhpur students urge Prez, HRD Minitsry to sack Director

Jodhpur: Agitating students of the IIT Jodhpur have appealed to President Pranab Mukherjee and the HRD Ministry to remove Director CVR Murti for his "dictatorial attitude".

The students have been agitating against a recently passed Code of Conduct for the students, which prevents them from speaking to media about the institute and "on controversial topics". "We have been left with no other option than to come out of the institute's walls.

We are not being heard either by the government or the institute's administration," an agitating student said. The students have sent a signed petition the HRD Ministry and the Board of Governors, demanding the resignation of Murti, annulling of the recent termination of faculty member Ganesh Bagler and a transparent probe into the terminations of faculty of the institute.

"The atmosphere has been non-academic since Murti took charge in September 2013 and all the progress or development has been held up," the students alleged in the petition. "At a time when IIT Jodhpur is facing an alarming faculty crunch, Murti has been consistently and ruthlessly terminating the faculties in the name of unsatisfactory review," they said.